The girl broke her silence—‘What are the chances of us coming on other folks up here, McAllister?’
‘Slim.’
The air was chill now. A wolf sang sadly below them, ranging along a valley. A night bird called eerily in the timber. McAllister glanced across at the prisoner and saw that he appeared to be sleeping.
Ana drew a blanket around her shoulders, shivering a little. Her face showed the strain she was enduring.
‘What’s the man’s name, McAllister?’ She asked.
‘I don’t know.’
‘You mean you followed him all this time and you don’t even know his name?’
‘I know a half-dozen he’s gone by. But they’re not his real names. I was hoping you would tell me.’
She started and snatched her gaze from the fire to his face.
‘Me tell you? Are you crazy? How would I know his name?’
He said: ‘You know him, Ana. Quit fooling around. You didn’t come along on this trip to be with me. You’re with him.’
‘That’s a foul thing to say.’
‘Maybe it’s a foul thing to do.’
Did she look scared? He felt half-sorry for her and half-wary of her. He knew that she could be the death of him.
‘I couldn’t bear to think of you alone on the trail with a man like that,’ she said.
‘You know I’ve been doing this kind of thing since I was old enough to do it,’ he told her.
‘Not with a man like this one,’ she said with utter conviction. ‘You need eyes at the back of your head. If he says he’ll get free before we reach Black Horse, that’s what he’ll do.’
‘You seem very confident. You must know him damn well.’
‘I can see the kind of man he is.’
McAllister smoked his pipe out, thinking. Finally, he said: ‘Ana, maybe this is where you make your choice about the person you’re going to be. Once and for all.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘You know what I mean. 1 don’t aim to waste my breath explaining.’
She said nothing more but rolled in her blankets and prepared for sleep. He found another blanket for her and laid it over her. He built up the fire so that it cast a good light by which he could clearly see the prisoner, then he picked up his Henry rifle and walked over to the prisoner. He listened for a short while to make sure that he was asleep, then he prodded him with a toe. The man opened his eyes and lifted his head.
‘What’s up?’ he said.
McAllister smiled. ‘I can get by with hardly any sleep at all. I wonder if you can. I’ll be waking you every time I build up the fire.’
The man said nothing.
In the trees behind the man McAllister found a good spot from which he could see the whole camp area. He draped a blanket around his shoulders and sat down with his back to a bole of a tree. Within a minute or so, he had dropped off into a light doze. Five times during the night he rose to build up the fire. As he passed the man’s tree to the fire, he woke him. When he returned, he prodded him just in case he had managed to fall asleep. The man did not say a word until the fifth time. This was even more than he could bear and he said something very obscene. McAllister looked pleased. Each time he returned for his own rest, he chose a different spot.
Fourteen
McAllister woke to the first pale light of dawn. He was cold and stiff. At once he looked towards the prisoner and was surprised to see the girl standing about ten paces from him, watching him. They seemed to be staring at each other in silence.
McAllister rose and walked across the intervening space. As he came near to Ana, she turned her head to look at him and said in Spanish: ‘You should kill him, McAllister. You will regret not having killed him, if you live to do so.’ The hatred in her voice was so great that she appeared to shudder under its impact.
‘Cook us some breakfast, Ana,’ he said gently.
She turned at once and went back to the fire. The prisoner showed his strong yellow teeth in a grin of pure malevolence. ‘What bad things did she tell you about me?’ he asked. McAllister ignored him and followed the girl. Her mood seemed to have changed abruptly. She turned and gave him a smile which contained some of her former brightness.
‘Maybe I’m just a foolish woman,’ she said. ‘Don’t listen to me. I get depressed and say silly things.’
‘Not so silly, I reckon. You hate him right enough. I have a right to ask you why?’
She flipped bacon over in the griddle. The fat spat, she started when it burned her arm. ‘I hate him because I feel he’s evil. No other reason. Isn’t that reason enough?’
‘Hell, Ana,’ he said, ‘see it from where I stand. If you know him from the past, don’t you see …?’
‘Sure, I see. You are not trusting me again. But I will show you that you can trust me. You will find that during the night he has cut through the rope that holds him almost.’
McAllister nodded his acknowledgment. ‘What were you saying to him? Or, more important maybe, what was he saying to you?’
‘I did not say anything. Not one word. He was asking me to help him escape.’
‘Stay away from him,’ he said. ‘If you do that he can’t talk to you and get you caught up in something you’re best out of.’
‘I can’t be out of it. I’m here. Your problem is my problem.’
‘The best way to help me is to stay away from him and watch him when you can.’
‘I watch him all the time. I find I cannot stop myself. All the time I learn something more about him. That’s why I’m scared.’
When the bacon and beans were cooked and the coffee was ready, McAllister took the prisoner a plate of food and a cup of coffee. The man said: ‘This mountain air does wonders for the appetite. You notice that I eat every scrap? I’m building up my strength for when I move out—without you, McAllister. I’ll take the girl with me. She’s neat, that one. On the small side, but all woman. A man needs a woman on a long trail. An Indian’s best for trailing, but a Mex is the next best thing. You agree?’
‘You mean you found a willing one?’ McAllister said. The man laughed.
McAllister walked back to the fire. ‘Ana’, he said, ‘would you take the horses to water?’ He did not want to take his eyes off the prisoner. McAllister inspected the state of his own mind and knew that the fellow had got to him, a fact that he did not like. But a man had to face facts. Every fact in a situation like this one. He looked at the sky, turning to see every aspect of it. It would rain before noon and he cursed a little. Who liked riding in the rain? Particularly rain in these uplands where it came wind-blown and with a cut of ice. Sally, he knew, would hate it. The only time she ever acted up was in rain.
By the time the girl returned with the horses, he had all the gear ready. As he saddled the animals, he told her: ‘It’ll rain this morning. Keep your poncho handy.’ When he had the horses ready for the trail, he went to the prisoner and untied the rope on the far side of the tree. When the fellow got to his feet, McAllister saw where he had cut almost through the rope. It was a five-stranded reata, beautifully plaited by a Mexican craftsman for McAllister some years before. It had been kept in good condition and he valued it highly.
He said: ‘You ruined a good rope. I ought to take it out of your hide.’
The man shrugged.
‘I got bored in the night,’ he said. ‘It wasn’t a serious try. If it had been, I’d be free now and you’d be kicking up the daisies, believe me.’
McAllister was a little surprised to find that he did believe him. Such a recognition of the man’s abilities made him uneasy. The man was getting to him just a shade too much for comfort.
Now he had to get the rope off the man, for it was no use as it was. He ordered him to lie on his face on the ground and put his hands above his head. The fellow responded with a mocking grin and instant obedience. McAllister bent to remove the rope from his wrists and told him to get up again. He took the opportunity to check that the handcuffs w
ere still intact.
‘Admit it, McAllister. You’re scared to hell of me.’
‘If I was that, I wouldn’t have tracked you down and caught you. I’m as wary of you as I would be of a mad dog.’
McAllister took out his knife, cut away the damaged part of the rope and made a new noose, forming a honda from the rope itself. He told him to go ahead and mount up. When he was in the saddle, McAllister dropped the noose around the man’s neck again. The girl stepped into the mule’s saddle.
That day they hit a trail that followed the contour of the mountain. They rode with conifers above and below them all day, the hoofs of the animals silent on the fallen needles. Towards noon, they came down into slightly lower country—a giant valley dotted with great boulders. Between the boulders was short green grass, so green that it was almost startling to the eyes. Stunted silver birch shone white here and their foliage hung like gossamer. A small mountain stream rushed and danced over blue-grey rocks. And here the rain started softly. The girl and McAllister at once shrugged themselves into their ponchos. The prisoner called out: ‘I want my slicker, McAllister.’
‘I can’t see your hands under a slicker. So you get a washing.’
For the first time since the start of the ride the prisoner showed anger and the fact that he did not like getting wet any more than any other man did. ‘Christ,’ he said, ‘you can’t treat a prisoner this way and you know it. You don’t have the right.’
McAllister said: ‘If you wasn’t such an evil bastard, I would feel kindly towards you. As it is, I don’t. Lead out.’
‘Like hell I lead out,’ the man shouted. ‘Give me my fish. I ain’t moving an inch till I—’
He stopped when he saw McAllister slip from the saddle and start towards him. ‘See here,’ said McAllister, ‘You don’t have any rights. You don’t tell anybody what they can or can’t do. You just sit that saddle and keep a still tongue in your head, hear?’
Suddenly the rain intensified. The wind seemed to pick up with an insane violence. It howled along the valley, driving the rain before it and it seemed to strike the three of them there like a solid wall of water. Almost at once the ground was slippery underfoot. Horses and mule tried to back and turn away from the drive of it. Sally gave the usual pitiful whinny with which she expressed her dislike of rain. She turned and tried to run in spite of the dragging line, stumbled on it, almost went down and then started off with her head to one side and held high to avoid it. McAllister shouted for her to hold. As he turned towards her, he was aware of sudden movement from behind him. He swung back quickly, knowing that it came from the prisoner, but he was too late. The man’s horse was on him. Its shoulder crashed into his chest and he was propelled from his feet as if he weighed no more than a feather.
They were on sloping ground which was now wet with the hard rain. When McAllister hit this on his side, he slid more than a yard quite out of control. The prisoner at once jumped the horse after him and McAllister was only saved from being trampled underfoot by the animal slipping. It whinnied shrilly. McAllister tried to rise, but both supporting hand and foot slipped and he went down on his face in the light mud. He heard the girl screaming something, but he did not know what. The man was shouting.
McAllister tried rolling, but he was badly impeded by his poncho.
The prisoner was standing in his stirrups, shouting to the girl.
‘Kill him, you fool. Shoot the son-of-a-bitch.’
McAllister saw to his astonishment that the girl had her gun in her hand and that the weapon was pointed at him. He tried desperately to roll again, his whole body expectant of a bullet hitting him. Nothing happened. As he came out of the roll and staggered to his feet, he saw that the girl had not moved. She still held the gun and it was still pointed at him. The prisoner was still yelling. McAllister heaved his Remington from leather and shouted to Ana: ‘Put up that gun, girl.’
The prisoner stared blankly at him for a moment, then raked his horse with spurs and turned it up the slope. The animal slipped once and then again. McAllister found himself running. He was sideways on to the wind and rain, both trying to wrench him from his feet. The horse made one jump successfully, then on the next jump failed to find good purchase and nearly went down. McAllister went forward in a long dive for the trailing rope, dropping his gun so that he could use both hands. He got a grip on the rope as the horse found its feet and went ahead.
The manacled rider let out a strangled yell and came out of the saddle clean as a whistle. He hit the ground on his shoulders and slithered downhill until he almost reached McAllister who rose at his leisure, looked down at him and stamped a heel into his belly. The man made a long whining noise and lay still.
McAllister turned and walked over to the girl.
She was sitting in the mud. The gun lay on the ground beside her and she was weeping.
‘Well,’ he said, ‘why didn’t you shoot?’
She did not look at him.
‘I couldn’t,’ she said.
‘That’s nice to know,’ he told her. He picked up her gun and tucked it behind his belt. He saw that her mule was wandering off with Sally. He called to his mare and she stopped, looking a little ashamed of herself. When he reached her, he told her: ‘I know damn well you don’t like rain, girl, but you choose the goddamnedest times to show it.’ He led both animals back and told Ana to hold them. ‘Do you trust me to do even that?’ she asked.
‘Cheer up,’ he said. ‘We ain’t dead yet.’
The prisoner had his eyes open, but he wasn’t moving. His face looked the color of the grass on which he lay.
‘What’s wrong with you?’ McAllister said. ‘Nothing trivial, I hope.’
The man tried to curse him, but no sound came. He had to be satisfied with looking his hatred.
McAllister smiled happily. ‘You’ll sleep tonight, punk. From here on, you walk. That’s what comes of being a naughty prisoner.’
As they moved on again, this time with the prisoner walking, the girl brought the mule alongside McAllister. ‘This is only the start,’ she said. ‘Before you are through, you will wish that you had acted on what I told you. You should kill him. If you do not, I shall be burying you.’
Fifteen
It rained for two whole days, lessening a little at times, but not stopping. Then on the third dawn they rode out into light upland sunshine. For those two days, scarcely a word had passed between the three of them. They rode, a miserable trio, on slippery trails, under the teeming rain, hating it as much as the animals. Even Sally showed her displeasure in small ways.
Apart from the time when the mule had slipped over and nearly pinned the girl to the ground, and the night when McAllister had awoken from a doze to find the girl near the prisoner, the two days had been uneventful.
McAllister had found shelter for them under a great overhang on a shelf above a valley. Here he had built a good fire so that the prisoner could steam dry. There was nothing to which he could tether the man, so he had to be contented with tying his ankles.
Ana had been sleeping at McAllister’s side. He woke to find her sleeping place empty and, glancing across at the prisoner, he saw the girl standing over the man. As he watched, she kicked him and he heard her say: ‘I caught you sleeping. McAllister doesn’t want you to sleep.’ The man cursed her foully and she walked back to her place.
McAllister said softly: ‘That was nice work and appreciated, but you stay away from him. If he gets his hands on you again, that would be the finish.’ Without a word, she lay down and apparently fell asleep. He looked at her face. She looked very young and troubled. He wondered about her going to shoot him back there on the trail. Had he been in any real danger? She was a puzzle to him.
During those two days, though she had consented to sleeping near him, she made no attempt to touch him. In fact, she avoided any physical contact. It was as though she had withdrawn completely within herself. It dawned on him now why she looked so haggard and realized that it was not so
much the struggle which was so obviously going on within her, but the fact that she had been lying awake to watch the prisoner on his behalf. He was even more puzzled.
~*~
They found themselves on the first established trail they had hit. It gave every sign of being one of those mountain roads which had been used by generations of men. There were ancient travois marks made by the Indians, hoofmarks, both of cattle and horses. They even met two riders with a pack-mule heading west who stopped long enough to pass the time of day and to enquire who the prisoner was and what his crime was. McAllister gave them any old name and told them murder. They looked with interest at the prisoner and he met their gazes stonily. They looked at Ana with admiration like men who had not seen a woman in a long time. They spoke to her with shy courtesy. They asked McAllister if he had any salt to spare, but he was forced to reply that he had none. They thanked him and rode on.
That noon, McAllister made the announcement that they were now in the territory of Wyoming.
The prisoner looked at him in a bored kind of a way and said: ‘What’s that make me?’
‘Very nearly a criminal arrested for murder,’ McAllister told him. ‘Pretty soon we shall be in Black Horse County.’
‘You’ll never get me there,’ said the man.
Ana replied fiercely: ‘He will get you there. And there they will hang you and that will be the end of you.’
They had halted for noon coffee and a chew on their supply of jerky at a pleasant spot above a small rugged valley in which they could see elk moving distantly.
‘Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned,’ said the man.
‘How could garbage like you scorn a woman like Ana?’ McAllister was assessing the man, knowing that he was very tired. Sleeplessness was beginning to break him down. He was hard and he was tough, he had staying power and a strong mind, but lack of sleep was starting to tell on him. His eyes were slow to change their gaze, there was a new heaviness to his movements. He had a long way to go before he would break, but the rot had started.
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